Early life

Born in Taipei, Taiwan on November 6, 1968, Yang moved to San Jose, California at the age of ten, with his mother and younger brother. His father died when Yang was two. He claimed that despite his mother being an English teacher, he only knew one English word (shoe) on his arrival. Becoming fluent in three years, he was placed into an AP English class.[5]

Yang graduated from Sierramont Middle School, and Piedmont Hills High School, then went on to receive his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

Career

While he studied in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, he co-created in April 1994 with David Filo an Internet website consisting of a directory of other websites called “Jerry and Dave’s Guide to the World Wide Web”. It was renamed “Yahoo!” (an exclamation). Yahoo! became very popular, Yang and Filo realized the business potential and co-founded Yahoo! Inc. in April 1995.[6] They took a leave of absence and postponed their doctoral programs indefinitely.

Yahoo! started off as a web portal with a web directory providing an extensive range of products and services for online activities. It is now one of the leading internet brands and, due to partnerships with telecommunications firms, has the most trafficked network on the internet.

On November 17, 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported that Jerry Yang would step down as CEO as soon as the company found a replacement. He had been criticized by many investors, including Carl Icahn, for not increasing revenues and the Yahoo! stock price.[7]

On January 13, 2009, Yahoo! named Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz as its new chief executive, effectively replacing Yang.[8] Yang regained his former position as “Chief Yahoo” and remains on Yahoo’s board of directors.[9]

Personal life

Yang is married to Akiko Yamazaki, who was raised in Costa Rica. She graduated from Stanford University with a degree in industrial engineering. The couple met at the Stanford University in Kyoto overseas program in 1992.

Yang is currently on the Board of Directors of Alibaba, the Asian Pacific Fund, Cisco, and Yahoo! Japan, and is also on the Stanford University Board of Trustees.[10]

Philanthropy

In February 2007, Jerry Yang and his wife gave USD $75 million to Stanford University, their alma mater, the bulk of which went to building the “Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building”.[11] The building, nicknamed Y2E2, was designed by Boora Architects of Portland, Oregon and constructed by Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company of San Francisco, California. It is a multi-disciplinary research, teaching and lab building, the first to be realized on Stanford’s new Science and Engineering Quad.

Criticism

China

Jerry Yang was criticized for a statement regarding the role of Yahoo! in the arrest of mainland Chinese journalist Shi Tao by Chinese authorities.

While in China, Shi Tao used a Yahoo email address to notify a pro-democracy website that the Chinese government ordered the Chinese media not to cover the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 on June 4. Yahoo! provided the Chinese security agencies with the IP addresses of the senders, the recipients and the time of the message. Tao was subsequently convicted for “divulging state secrets abroad.” Yang was heavily criticized and Reporters Without Borders called Yahoo! “a Chinese police informant” whose actions led to the conviction of a journalist and writer.

Jerry Yang declared, “To be doing business in China, or anywhere else in the world, we have to comply with local law[s].” This was controversial, as critics claimed Yahoo! violated international law as well as a 1989 decision by the U.S. Congress to prohibit U.S. companies from selling “crime control and detection” equipment or software to the Chinese Government.[12]

The New York Times reported that political prisoner Wang Xiaoning and other journalists had brought a civil suit against Yahoo for allegedly aiding and abetting the Chinese government which, it was claimed, resulted in torture that included beatings and imprisonment.[13]

More recently Jerry Yang was summoned to Washington to answer for Yahoo’s comments regarding its role in the arrests of Shi Tao and other journalists in China.[14][15]

On November 14, 2007, Yahoo agreed to settle with affected Chinese dissidents, paying them undisclosed compensation. Yang stated, “After meeting with the families, it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them, for Yahoo, and for the future.” In response, Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos, chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, stated, “It took a tongue-lashing from Congress before these high-tech titans did the right thing and coughed up some concrete assistance for the family of a journalist whom Yahoo had helped send to jail. What a disgrace.”[16]

Jerry Yang wrote a letter to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requesting her assistance in freeing the jailed dissidents.[17] In addition, Yang established the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund, a fund to provide “humanitarian and legal support” to online dissidents.[18] One of the first public projects of the fund was financing the establishment of the Laogai Museum, a museum opened by noted Chinese dissident Harry Wu to showcase China’s laogai penal system.

This change of heart has not been able to stop the chain of events that began with the arrest of jailed dissident Li Zhi, which resulted in another lawsuit being filed against Yahoo on behalf of Plaintiffs Zheng Cunzhu and Guo Quan who allege the loss of property and a garment business. The complaint alleges, “violation of international law including torture and prolonged detention, as well as unfair business practices, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and assault.

Microsoft

Yang was also criticized by shareholders for rejecting an offer of $33 a share from Microsoft in May 2008 – Microsoft subsequently walked away from the negotiations. In November 2008 the shares were valued at only $14 [4] and Google also decided not to proceed with commercial search advertising arrangements under negotiation influenced by the concerns voiced by the US authorities regarding the effect on competition in the market. On July 29, 2009, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced a search deal to compete against Google, after the Bing search of Microsoft was successfully launched earlier in June.

External links

Jerry Yang’s profile in Yahoo!

Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki

1999 “Time Digital 50” snippet on Yang

Stanford Jerry Yang and David Filo Bio

Mark & Marc Interview

MetroActive: A Couple of Yahoos

IT Conversations audio interview from the Web 2.0 conference – 7 October 2004

Jerry Yang, Yahoo and the Shi Tao case

Yang’s comment on the Shi Tao case

Yahoo CEO paying the price for saying no to Microsoft

David Filo

David Filo

Yahoo! co-founder David Filo

Born

April 20, 1966 (1966-04-20) (age 44)[1]
Wisconsin, US

Alma mater

Tulane University
Stanford University

Occupation

Co-founder and Chief Yahoo, Yahoo! Inc.

Salary

unknown

Net worth

▲US$1.4 billion (2010)

Website
Official website

David Filo (born April 20, 1966) is an American businessman and the co-founder of Yahoo! with Jerry Yang.

Until the company decided to switch to PHP, his Filo Server Program, written in the C programming language, was the server-side scripting software used to dynamically serve variable web pages, called Filo Server Pages, on visits to the Yahoo! web site.

Personal life and Education

Filo was born in Wisconsin. At age 6, he moved to Moss Bluff, Louisiana, a suburb of Lake Charles, Louisiana. He graduated from Sam Houston High School and then earned a BS in Computer Engineering from Tulane University (through the Dean’s Honor Scholarship) and an MS from Stanford University.

In 2006, Filo was estimated to be worth $2.9 billion, ranking him the 240th richest person in the world. As a philanthropist, in 2005 he donated $30 million to his alma mater, Tulane University, for use in its School of Engineering.